Walk-in thermal chambers may be used in the industry for rack-level thermal testing. Such chambers may allow testing at uniform temperature and humidity. However, typical thermal chambers are not equipped to maintain hot and cold aisles that a separated by the racks and servers being tested. Furthermore, typical thermal chambers are not equipped to control and monitor cold aisle air inlet temperatures and inlet air flow rates. Examples of typical chambers include Modular Walk-In Chambers, Welded Walk-In Chambers, and Stability Walk-In Rooms supplied by CSZ Industrial of Cincinnati, Ohio.
But in a data center environment, a server rack is positioned between a hot aisle and a cold aisle to achieve a higher cooling efficiency. In the typical configuration, the ambient or cold air temperature aisle is at the front of the rack and the hot aisle is at the back. The air temperature between the cold and hot aisles may show a gradient between the two and be considered a “warm” zone.
Thus, it is apparent that typical thermal chambers are not equipped to simulate the conditions under which a server rack may be used, or provide detailed information regarding individual servers in a server rack.
Without such information from a rack-level test room it is difficult to assess the effects of hardware design changes (server, rack, or room) on thermal performance, or on the thermal performance of other elements in the system. For example, by not monitoring and controlling air flow rates and temperatures typical thermal chambers cannot test the effect of those data center variable on server or rack performance.
Therefore, the need exists for a solution that allows both the control and monitoring of many elements of the environment of a rack test room.